Posted on 05/28/2003 1:00:57 PM PDT by Drew68
By Dean Goodman
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - In the words of one of their songs, Dancing Days are here again for fans of Led Zeppelin.
Defunct for almost 23 years, the pioneering English band behind such hard rock classics as "Stairway to Heaven" and "Kashmir (news - web sites)" has cleaned out its vaults to issue eight hours of previously unreleased live material on DVD and CD.
The "Led Zeppelin DVD" contains footage from four tours spanning 1970 to 1979; the CD "How The West Was Won" combines two Los Angeles shows from 1972 to replicate a single concert.
Remarkably, the band's leader and guitarist, Jimmy Page (news), who compiled the releases, says he remembers all the concerts as if they were yesterday.
"To actually go through it bit by bit and hear sections of it, you go, 'Yeah, yeah, that's really good' or 'I played really well there' or 'My God, that's embarrassing, that bit I played then,"' Page, 58, said in an interview.
Both the DVD and CD were released this week with Page, singer Robert Plant (news), 53, and keyboardist/bassist John Paul Jones (news), 56, embarking on a publicity blitz. Ironically, Led Zeppelin shunned such chores during its 12-year reign, preferring to let the music speak for itself.
But rumors that the trio would play together came to naught. The band has reunited only twice since breaking up after the 1980 alcohol-related death of drummer John Bonham (news). Page and Plant toured and recorded together in the 1990s, to Jones' initial chagrin. These days, the threesome's relationship is more business than social, Page says.
"MAGICAL ELEMENT"
"There were four very different personalities anyway in Led Zeppelin, very different personalities," Page said. "But when they bonded musically, the four elements joined together, took on a fifth element -- a thing which is totally intangible and it can't be charted, which was that magical element."
Led Zeppelin's members fused folk and blues influences to create a genre known as heavy metal. The group's catalog, highlighted by their untitled 1971 album and 1975's "Physical Graffiti" has sold about 200 million copies worldwide.
But their strength was arguably live performances. They toured incessantly, setting new standards for ticket sales. Songs from the albums were radically reworked on stage.
The new CD boasts a 25-minute version of "Dazed and Confused," while Bonham drums relentlessly during the 19-minute "Moby Dick." Spontaneity was the key, which is why the band decided to call it a day rather than try to feign improvisation with a new drummer.
"You had to be totally, totally involved. It's like a sacrifice you were there for," Page said.
The DVD features songs from London's Royal Albert Hall (1970) and Earl's Court (1975), New York's Madison Square Garden (1973) and England's Knebworth Festival (1979). And that's it as far as live footage is concerned, Page says.
"We didn't have a documentary crew going round with us all the time. What would we do it for? We weren't a television band," Page said.
"A BIT OF A LAUGH"
Similarly, the only other audio footage in the vaults was from a university gig, which was done "for a bit of a laugh." Page vows it will never see the light of day because the band made so many mistakes. (Page did use some computer tricks to fix a few wrong chords on the newly released material.)
These days, Page divides his time between a historic London townhouse and a mansion in nearby Windsor. His post-Zeppelin career has been patchy, with highlights including a tour with the Black Crowes and recording a rap version of "Kashmir" with rapper Sean Combs. He says he's working on something "quite surprising" but declined to go into detail.
Yes, I prefer the Mesa Boogie DC-5...great clean sound, great distorted lead sound. I keep the strat volume on maybe 2 for the clean, just turn up the volume knob to get distortion and amazing controllable sustain during the leads.. Marshall is best for balls to the wall distortion.
Thanks for the review! You've convinced me.
It is amazing the impact that drugs had on the bands of that time. Many musicians were searching for some inner meaning of life through drugs that they never found but it did make for some interesting music and lyrics. And yes, there was also quite a bit of naivete in the words of those songs, which appear kind of silly today.
They were a relaxing yet at times thought provoking band...sort of like Floyd but much smoother and far less angst....and little or no wandering.
That's an excellent assessment of those bands.
I was born in 57 and can timeline my lifeby music pretty well from say the 3rd grade to about age 20. After that my timeline is structured by the women in my life or where I lived.
Music and Women do have certain associative quality. The Beatles were a group that pretty much timelined every grade I was until their breakup in 1970. Speaking of which, a couple of days ago on my way back from a Memorial weekend fishing trip the old Motown Song "Alive and Kicking" came over the radio. That song came out in the summer of 1970 when I was a sophomore in high school (you are a youngster!). Right away a rush of old memories of that summer came back as if it was only a few years ago...the girlfriend that I just had to see so I rode my bike some 100 miles to her house. A wild camping trip in north of Milwaukee. The summer that never seemed to end. These days I try not to think in timelines...just in one blur of a continuum.
My wife who's 8 years my junior and sort of came of age with punk and new wave is much better at contemporary music than me. She likes stuff like The Hives and alternative country like Whiskey Town.
I'm not up to date on contemporary music either but every now and then some new band catches my ear like Nirvana did in the 90s. Recently I saw this band on VH1...forget the name, that has this crunching guitar rhythm that is infectious. The song is a big hit and I know it's one of the hot bands now. I have to find out their name and get my hands on that album.
I am more apt to like older music...which is funny because in the early 80s when classic rock really took off, I hated it..lol...I used to think "been there done that"...plus they played way too much Supertramp, Styx, Queen, and Yes type stuff for my taste. Somebody wants that stuff...aside from May's great occasional guitar stuff....one ought to go back to King Crimson.
I was never a fan of those bands either with the exception of Yes mainly because of Steve Howe's guitar playing. I also had a similar reaction to the retro classic rock fad in the early 80s. There was a lot of cool Punk stuff going on then and I thought why are they playing all this old stuff?
In general there was a lot of snobbishness back in the 60s/70s about many of the more pop orientated bands among serious rock enthusiasts. I remember secretly liking Credence Clearwater Revival, Three Dog Night, the Carpenters and Motown in general but was afraid to admit it because of the scorn I would receive if I mentioned it to my Rock purist friends. I appreciated these bands not so much for their technically ability or originality (because most were deficient in those areas) but because, well, they had ear catching music and good rhythm grooves.
You'll have to forgive me but I was a Deadhead too...not a tie-dyed swirling dervish who liked chicks with hair under their arms but more of a Southern longhair with faded jeans and old flannel shirt dirt freak. I still like their stuff up to Terrapin Station. It grew on me with the years....American Beauty is one of the best ...not a bad song on it...if one likes that sort of stuff.
Nothing to forgive I liked the GD also.
You bet. Marshall has a great electric tone that remains quite clear even through moderate distortion. It's the Champ of Amps IMO.
Yes, I prefer the Mesa Boogie DC-5...great clean sound, great distorted lead sound.
I'll have to give that a try on my Fender Twin. I've heard a lot about the Mesa Boogie.
ZZ Top seems to like to retain their gritty sound when they record. Something I wish more bands would do.
I was a huge Yes and Steve Howe fan back in the day. My favorite album of theirs is one that doesn't get much pub: Relayer (1974). Only three songs (like Close to the Edge, and nearly every minute is worthwhile. I can still listen to "The Gates of Delerium" and it sounds fresh.
Saw them only once, on the '79 Tormato tour (in "the round"), and it was tremendous. Amazing musicians, all of them.
I was too young to care about the snobbishness ..... Credence was my very first favorite band. Man, talk about a hit machine. Fogerty (back then) could write a top-20 FM masterpiece in his sleep. Too many great songs to list. And a very, very tight band with a great and distinctive sound.
Likewise.
Interesting to read all the feedback on live Zeppelin. Most people here seem to have had disappointing experiences.
I can't speak from personal experience (I was born the week LZII came out) but I have read and heard a fair amount on the subject, and most seems to agree that Zep's early gigs were really phenomenal. That was in fact how they built much of their following in the first years. In 1969 they had three separate tours of North America alone. It was important that they do well given that the music press had given them the brush-off, and that no one seemed much interested in another Yardbirds spinoff band. So they began opening for Vanilla Fudge, only to blow them off the stage (VF finally refused to go onstage after Zep had wrung the crowd for a few hours). It no doubt helped as well that Jimmy wasn't strung out on heroin yet.
In the later years - 1972 onward - they did only big arena tours. Far fewer gigs, albeit to more bodies. As a result they were less practiced (and probably a little less hungry as well). And growing off-stage distractions were cutting into their performance, which became more and more uneven as a result. Bonzo was, of course, the one exception. Always able to play with perfect timing no matter how wasted he was.
Most people who saw them at all saw them in the latter days. And that's probably why Zep gets a not entirely deserved reputation for ragged live performances.
I haven't viewed the DVD's yet, but you can bet I'm burning to do so. My fifteen year old bootlegs just aren't cutting it any more.
Wanna bet?:)
47 years old......and started slinging guitar in '68.
No wait a second? Didn't I hear that the record companies were on the verge of bankruptcy because everyone's stealing music off the Internet? I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say that if the industry produced innovative quality music,(like the stuff produced during rock's golden age) that actually shows a spark of talent , as opposed to stringing a bunch of profanity together, calling it RAP and charging $20.00 / CD for it, maybe they wouldn't NEED to compalin to congress. Ya think?
I watched the dvd in it's entirety last night and I was blown away by Page's playing in the songs that were selected. Just incredible --particularly the first disc (Royal Albert Hall, 1970).
The problem with Page live is that he was not consistent. Some nights he was on fire, other nights he was just horrible.
I saw him perform on television a few times in the 1980s (when I was a huge Zeppelin fan as a teen) and his playing was just awful --as if he hadn't picked up a guitar since 1979.
Later, I read that Page spent most of the late 1970s-1980s battling drug addiction. I've also read that he has since cleaned up his act.
I've always thought Page sounded best when he plugged his Les Paul straight into his Marshall and didn't mess around with effect pedals ('cept his wah) like he did at the early Zeppelin shows.
My thoughts exactly! I didn't stop buying cds because I burned them off the net. I've never burned a disc of the net before.
If good cds are released, I will purchse them (as I did with Audioslave and Queens of the Stone Age). Those are the only two discs I've purchased this year.
I am soooo sick of Britney, Christina, N-Sync, 50 Cent, Jay-Z and all that rap, R&B, Hip-Hop, kiddie punk (Avril, Good Charlotte) and bubblegum bands. I have gone from buying two discs a week (ten years ago) to two or three a year. It is not piracy, it is that the industry keeps pushing this horrible crap down my throat.
I'll have to drop you a line when I go shopping for my next amp. Thanks for the info.
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